


A Fool's Dance

by Rosalita



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Time, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosalita/pseuds/Rosalita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Danny had gone with Rachel and Grace to Newark. And what if it turned out to be a big mistake?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fool's Dance

**Author's Note:**

> I started on this story back in August with the hope of posting it before the 2nd season premiere. You can see how well that worked out! In my defense, the story grew to be much longer than I anticipated. Anyway, this is my take on what might have happened if Danny had gone back to Newark with Rachel and Grace. And I just want it known that I wrote the solution to Rachel's pregnancy before the 2nd season premiere aired. Just sayin'. :-)
> 
> A big thank you to aprilvalentine and m_lasha for their stellar beta work. Any remaining mistakes are totally my fault.

Love’s a fool’s dance  
I ain’t got much sense, but I’ve still got my feet  
 --Bruce Springsteen, _Girls in Their Summer Clothes  
  
_  
Danny could never figure out what to call the thing he had going with Steve. He didn’t liked the term ‘fuck buddies,’ but that probably came the closest to describing it. They weren’t boyfriends – too high school. And it sure wasn’t a “relationship.”  
  
Whatever it was called, it started after a long case that Danny had dubbed the “Never-ending Case from Hell” in order to distinguish it from all the other cases he’d named “The Case from Hell.”  
  
“They can’t all be the case from hell, Danny,” Kono said late one night when they were all fried from chasing down yet another false lead and bitching about it over beer at their favorite bar. The entire population of Oahu seemed to be conspiring to supply them with one dead end lead after another, and frankly, it was wearing thin.  
  
“Oh yes, they can. They most certainly can. They are all the case from hell. They just emanate from different circles of hell.” Danny used his hands to illustrate the concentric circles that made up hell.  
  
“Emanate?” Steve said and grinned when Danny glared at him.  
  
“Yes, you Neanderthal, emanate. Some of us have vocabularies that consist of more than one syllable words and grunts.”  
  
“Hey, I don’t grunt.”  
  
Kono rolled her eyes and smirked at Chin, “And they’re off. Again.”  
  
“And which circle did this one come from?” Chin interrupt the impending argument with drawl in that indicated the person being drawled at was full of shit.  
  
“The tenth circle,” Danny said without hesitation. He’d been thinking about this shit all night. “The one reserved for those who lead cops around by the nose, sending them on wild goose chases all over these godforsaken islands.”  
  
“There is no tenth circle, Danny,” Steve had said. And, of course, he’d read Dante, probably had the circles memorized, the perverse bastard.  
  
“There is now,” Danny said, taking a big swig of his beer. “Case closed.”  
  
Except the case wasn’t closed; it dragged on for almost two more weeks, but finally, the Never-ending Case from Hell actually ended, and the team indulged in their usual post-case blow out on the beach behind Steve’s house. Late that night after Chin and Kono had gone home, Steve and Danny were left alone to finish the beer and engage in some tired bickering before Danny did the same. In the middle of Danny’s lecture on the finer points of due process – which Steve had violated twice that Danny knew about, and probably a lot more that he didn’t – during the day’s arrests, Steve reached over and took Danny’s beer out of his hand. Before Danny could protest, Steve leaned in and kissed him. His lips were cool and rough, slightly salty from the ocean air, and a perfect fit for Danny’s mouth. This was going to be trouble, but Danny couldn’t stop himself from parting his lips and deepening the kiss. Who was he to fight what was inevitable from the moment they drew on one another in the garage?  
  
“What brought that on?” Danny asked when Steve broke the kiss and looked at Danny as if he wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to be punched, despite the fact that Danny had quite enthusiastically kissed him back.  
  
Steve shrugged. “I’m tired of dancing around this thing. Aren’t you?”  
  
And how. This “thing” had been going on for months, and dancing was a good analogy for it. It reminded him of dances at Catholic school, where the nuns walked around with a ruler to make sure you weren’t dancing too close. Except the nun in this case was Danny’s own psyche.   
  
“How drunk are you? You’re not going to claim you don’t remember anything in the morning, are you?”  
  
Steve’s smiled, and lightly traced the sensitive skin on the underside of Danny’s wrist, sending a pleasant shiver through Danny.  
  
“Stone cold sober,” Steve said.  
  
As much as he wanted Steve, and he really, really wanted him, Danny wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea to sleep with the guy who was technically his boss. Luckily, he’d had enough alcohol to wave off his own concerns in the face of Steve’s obvious interest. And Steve’s interest was pretty damned obvious what with the way the front of his board shorts were tented.  
  
Danny knew he should say no, but there was that inevitability thing again. That and the fact that Steve was looking at him from under those long lashes of his and running one finger along the inseam of his jeans, getting tantalizingly close to his dick. Danny was having a very hard time not inching forward to meet that finger. Fuck it. If it didn’t happen now, it would just happen some other time, so why not now?  
  
“Yeah,” he said, hoping this wasn’t going to turn out to be a huge mistake. “I’m tired of dancing around this thing.”  
  
“Good,” Steve breathed against his lips and pulled him in for another kiss, his hand finally inching up the rest of the way to land on Danny’s crotch.  
  
Danny tore his mouth away just as Steve palmed his cock through his jeans. “Whoa, hey, cowboy, we’re not doing this out here.”  
  
Steve’s hand froze and Danny regretted being so sharp with him.  
  
“But we are doing this, right?” Steve asked as if Danny had ever had the ability to say no to him.  
  
Danny grabbed a handful of Steve’s t-shirt. “Goddamn right we’re doing this.” He pulled Steve up and all but dragged him into the house. They made it into the kitchen where Steve pulled some kind of ninja SEAL move, and Danny found himself on the floor with Steve hovering above him, grinning like the maniac that he was. Then his eyes went dark and he lowered himself onto Danny, grinding down when their cocks met.  
  
Danny gasped at the contact and wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck. It was good. Really, really good, but hell if he was going to have sex on the kitchen floor. “Hey, before things go too far, you have a perfectly good bed upstairs. I know this. I’ve seen it.”  
  
“I want things to go too far,” Steve growled in his ear, punctuating each word with a perfect thrust that made Danny dizzy. He bucked up and gave in to the inevitable once more. It looked like they were going to have sex on the kitchen floor.  
  
“Goddammit.” He pushed at Steve and started pulling at the string of his shorts. “Get those off!”  
  
“Finally, you’re getting with the program!” Steve knelt up and pulled off his t-shirt while Danny was still tugging at his shorts. As Steve’s six-pack abs were revealed, Danny abandoned his efforts in order to run his hands over the cut of Steve’s hips, the ridges of his abdomen, his pecs – all the places on Steve’s body that he’d wanted to touch pretty much since the first time Steve had whipped off his shirt for the first of many times in Danny’s presence. His position put him at eye level with Steve’s nipples, which wasn’t a bad place to be, and he took advantage of it by licking one then the other before deciding he liked the right one better and returning to torment it with sharp jabs of his tongue.  
  
“God, Danny,” Steve ground out, pushing Danny away and pulling at the snap on Danny’s jeans and attempting to tug them down. “Why can’t you wear shorts like everyone else?”  
  
Danny knocked Steve’s hands away and shoved his pants and underwear down in one swift movement, groaning when rough denim dragged over his hard cock. Steve was on him as soon as his cock was bared, big hand wrapping around, squeezing just right and giving him a sharp tug.  
  
“Jesus!” he shouted and gave up on the idea of getting his pants down the rest of the way. He was lying bare-assed on the kitchen floor with his pants around his thighs, still wearing his t-shirt, while Steve took him apart with one hand and a gleam in his eye. Each upward stroke ended with a twist that soon had Danny panting, writhing and scrabbling at the linoleum, his fingers desperately trying to find purchase, to hold on. He wanted to make this last as long as possible because who knew if it would happen again.   
  
Steve had other plans and he pulled Danny up, pushed his tongue in his mouth, and plastered their bodies together, his cloth-covered cock pressing against Danny’s bare one. He did this little shimmy thing that had Danny clutching at Steve’s biceps while his orgasm overtook him.  
  
Steve coaxed him though it, as if that were necessary, but still his breathless, “Come on, Danny. That’s it, let go,” made everything better and he shot all over his t-shirt and Steve’s bare chest. As Danny was coming down, Steve continued to thrust against him until he went rigid and groaned out a few curses.  
  
He collapsed onto Danny and they laid there, catching their breath, Danny’s hand in Steve’s hair, one had stroking the damp curls at the base of his neck while the other hand traced the tattoo on his left arm. He really wanted to trace it with his tongue, but couldn’t find the energy. Some other time, he promised himself.  
  
When Danny opened his eyes, Steve was looking down at him, eyes dark with something that Danny didn’t want to define. “Hey,” Steve whispered, “I’ve got a perfectly good bed upstairs.” Steve stood up and held his hand out to Danny. It was then that Danny realized that Steve was still wearing his board shorts. Feeling a little smug over making Steve come in his pants, Danny warred with himself over his desire to stay and going home before this got more complicated than it needed to be.  
  
He allowed Steve to help him up, pulled his pants up and said, “That’s tempting, but I think we should keep this casual, don’t you?”  
  
Something changed in Steve’s eyes, but he said, “Yeah, sure. Yeah, you’re right.”

 

Keeping it casual, they hooked up once or twice a month, usually at the end of a case. They always met at Steve’s house and Danny never stayed the night. But then, after that first  night, Steve never asked him to.  
  
Danny’s first inkling that Steve’s feelings might be more than casual came when Steve walked in on him cuddling with Rachel in the hospital. Steve had been quick to mask his hurt expression, but Danny knew him well. And if Danny were honest with himself, he’d known from the very beginning that Steve was in love with him, and that he had only kept their relationship casual because it was what Danny wanted. Steve had apparently been willing to take Danny any way he could get him, even if Danny was still in love with his ex-wife.  
  
Later Steve had clung fiercely to Danny as if he already knew he was going to lose him. It wasn’t as if Danny didn’t love Steve; he did. He just didn’t know if he loved him enough. Loving Steve meant giving up on ever getting his family back, which Danny knew in his heart was a pipe dream, but still he clung to that fantasy. Nothing had changed: Rachel still didn’t like his being a cop, and Danny still wasn’t inclined to find a different line of work. But none of that fazed that little part of him that wanted everything to go back to the way it was when he, Rachel and Grace were a happy little family in a second floor walkup in Weehawken.  
  
Then there was the fear that if things went wrong with Steve, he’d lose the other two things that were so important to him: Steve and 5-0. As much as he bitched about Steve shanghaiing him into being his partner, Danny had to admit that the man had saved his life. Figuratively, anyway. Danny had been lonely and a bit bored at HPD. Aside from Meka and a few fellow haoles, most of the other detectives didn’t like him much. Other than dinners with Amy and Meka and his time with Grace, he spent most of his time holed up in his rattrap of an apartment.  
  
Steve saved him from that, although he’d never admit that to Steve. The guy had enough control over him already. He’d gotten used to the team nights, the good natured mocking they all engaged in, Chin’s quiet friendship and Kono’s bright, easy companionship. He’d already lost too much, and he couldn’t lose that, too. Most of all, he couldn’t lose Steve.  
  
But as it turned out, he lost him anyway.  
  
The thing with Rachel had been going on for a few weeks. There was that word again. He didn’t know what to call what he had with Rachel anymore than he knew what to call what he had with Steve. Affair sounded so tawdry, even if she had been his wife first. Fling didn’t sound right either. Steve had thrown “gay panic” in his face, but Steve had been drunk at the time, and Danny had let him believe it. It was easier that way.  
  
Thing was, he’d never intended to sleep with Rachel; it just kind of happened. Rachel had always been fond of Matt; he was her favorite of Danny’s siblings. Matt often teased Danny by claiming he’d steal Rachel away the moment Danny’s back was turned. So it had felt right to turn up on Rachel’s doorstep that night, full of grief and loss and guilt. She was so sympathetic, letting him talk about Matty until the tears choked him and he couldn’t talk anymore. Then she held out her arms, and he sank into her embrace, and just for a moment, he couldn’t remember why they’d ever split up. Next thing he knew, they were kissing and the proverbial one thing led to another, culminating in Rachel’s pregnancy.  
  
Everything went to hell so quickly that Danny’s head still spun whenever he thought about it. Turning up at Steve’s house with enough beer to get them both drunk enough to handle the impending conversation, he’d found Steve in such a state of hyper-vigilance and paranoia that he hadn’t been able to tell him that he was leaving. When he told Steve that Wo Fat was their problem and not Steve’s alone, he’d known even then that he wasn’t going to make that flight.  
  
Seeing Steve handcuffed in the back of that police car in the state he was in just about killed Danny and he promised Steve that he was going to get him out of the mess he’d gotten himself into, and he did. Getting in the faces of everyone from HPD to the DA to the acting governor himself, Danny pointed out that the taser burn on Steve’s neck proved that someone else was in the room. That and forensics’ finding that the bullet’s trajectory couldn’t have come from someone Steve’s height exonerated Steve in a matter of a few days. Kono was later cleared when the woman who pointed her out in the lineup’s mental capacity was questioned.  
  
By then, Danny was back in Newark.  
  
                                                                                          ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Doctor Valdez paused in his work and squinted at the blurry image on the screen. He moved the wand around on Rachel’s belly, and then looked at the screen again. Danny tensed and, at the same time, felt Rachel’s hand tighten in his grip. This wasn’t the sort of reaction they wanted a doctor to have when he was performing an ultrasound of their baby.  
  
Danny swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Is there a problem, doctor?”  
  
The doctor turned toward them with a reassuring smile. “Everything looks fine, but I think you may have made a slight miscalculation, Ms. Edwards.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked with a hint of barely controlled panic in her voice.  
  
“Judging from the size of the baby, I’d say you’re closer to six months pregnant than five. No problem, though. Happens all the time.” He moved closer to the screen, peering again at the image, oblivious to the reactions his words were causing. “I think can make out the sex. Do you want to know?”  
  
Rachel had gone pale and wide-eyed, and Danny could barely hear through the rushing in his ears, but one of them must have said something because the doctor said, “You’ve got a little boy. Congratulations.”  
  
Somehow, Danny managed to get out, “Thank you, Doctor,” and sound normal doing it. Almost.  
  
Eyeing him a little as he shook his hand, Valdez directed him to the waiting room with assurances that Rachel would be out shortly.  
  
Danny bypassed the waiting room and went straight to the parking lot where he paced by the car waiting for Rachel to come out. The effort he was exerting trying to stay calm obviously wasn’t working because people were walking wide paths around him and one couple reversed course when they saw him and were currently nervously eyeballing him from inside the lobby.   
  
He must look insane. He felt insane. His mind kept sticking on one point: If Rachel was six months pregnant and not five, then he wasn’t the father. The baby wasn’t his. And if the baby wasn’t his, that meant he was Stan’s. Rachel’s insistence on leaving Hawaii right away had never made much sense, but in the chaos that followed Steve’s arrest, he’d never questioned her about it. Had Rachel wanted out of her marriage so badly that she’d lied to him in order to get out of Hawaii quickly? He didn’t want to believe that she was capable of that kind of manipulation but nothing else explained her haste to return to Jersey.  
  
Paul Anka crooning _Having My Baby_ interrupted his thoughts. His sister Meggie had thought it was a great joke to secretly change the ringtone Danny used for Rachel to that insipid song. She loved to tease her little brother, and it had been funny at the time. Danny wasn’t laughing now.  
  
“What’s taking so long?” he barked into the phone.  
  
“Danny, could you come back inside?”  
  
“Are you okay?” In spite of his anger, he felt momentarily guilty for yelling. Rachel sounded upset, and he reminded himself that this had to be distressing for her, too.  
  
“I’m fine. Just come back inside.”  
  
Danny hung up and walked back into the doctor’s office, the nervous couple practically running out the door as he walked in.  
  
“Mr. Williams,” the doctor said when Danny entered the room, “if I could just get a strand of your hair . . .”  
  
“A strand of my –,” Danny pointed to his head to punctuate his question. “What the hell for?”  
  
“I’ve asked the doctor to do a paternity test,” Rachel said quietly, staring purposefully at the floor.  
  
Feeling like he’d been kicked in the gut, Danny allowed the doctor to pluck a strand of hair from his head.  
  
“I’ll have the results for you on Thursday,” Dr. Valdez said as they left the office.

Funny how things could change so quickly. The ride to the doctor’s office had been a happy one. They were both excited to see their baby for the first time and placed bets on whether it was a boy or a girl. Rachel had won that bet. Danny owed her a week of cooking dinner. Even if the baby wasn’t his.  
  
The ride home was a different story altogether. He slammed his hand down on the horn, cursing loudly, and went around the goddamned slowpoke in front of him.  
  
“I’m sure you want to kill me, but do slow down,” Rachel said, and she did sound a bit nervous.  
  
“I don’t want to kill you, Rachel. I just –“  
  
“Please, can’t this wait until we get home?”  
  
Danny didn’t want to wait. He wanted to pull over and have it out right now in the breakdown lane of the New Jersey Turnpike. But he knew how Rachel hated a scene, so he waved a hand at her and eased up on the gas. They were only 10 minutes from home.  
  
As soon as they entered the house they were renting, Danny followed Rachel into the kitchen, took a deep breath and launched. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew all along.”  
  
“No, Daniel, I didn’t.” She was calm. How could she be so calm? How could she be calmly filling the kettle with water and calmly putting it on the stove and calmly turning the knob? Rachel’s mom was apparently right. Tea really was the answer to everything. Danny’s life was falling down around him and Rachel was making fucking tea. Unbelievable!  
  
“Don’t lie to me. Don’t stand there with your tea kettle and your tea towels and whatever the fuck and lie to me.”  
  
“Don’t speak to me like that. If you can’t talk about this civil manner, then we won’t talk about it at all.”  
  
And fuck, he hated it when she got that haughty look on her face and tone to her voice. Like she was royalty and he was some commoner she’d seen pissing on the sidewalk.  He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere if he kept yelling, so he drew on what little calm he had inside and said, “What I want to know is why. Why have you been trying to pass off Stan’s child as mine?”  
  
“Oh, for god’s sake, I wasn’t trying to pass Stan’s child off as yours. This is so like you, Danny. Always putting the cart before the horse. The results aren’t even in yet, and you’ve already decided the baby isn’t yours and have worked yourself into a lather. He could still be yours, you know.”  
  
“Not if you’re six months pregnant, he’s not.”  
  
At that moment, the kettle decided to start whistling and damned if Rachel didn’t look a little relieved as she turned around and busied herself making a cup of tea.  
  
“Goddammit. You really did know, didn’t you? That explains why you wanted to get out of Hawaii so quickly.”  
  
“I told you not to swear at me.” She dropped a couple of sugar cubes into the cup. “I didn’t know for sure.” She turned around and looked him in the eyes for the first time since they’d gotten home.  “I want him to be yours. I really, really do.”  
  
“Why, Rachel? If you weren’t sure, why did you tell me the baby was mine?”  
  
“My marriage was falling apart, and I hadn’t slept with Stan since we were in Maui. I wanted it to be yours because I thought with a baby on the way, you might forget about him and we could be together again and happy like we used to be.”  
  
“Him who? Stan?”  
  
“Oh, Danny, please. Don’t play coy. It doesn’t suit you. You know very well who I’m talking about.” And Danny was afraid he did.  
  
Rachel made her way to the kitchen table and sat. She stared at her tea cup as if all the answers were held in the dark liquid. She uttered a quiet, unamused laugh. “I never thought I’d be part of a threesome, but here I am.”  
  
“Threesome?” Danny ran his hand through his hair, stopping short of actually tugging on it. He needed to stay calm. “What the hell are you talking about?”  
  
“You and me,” she ticked the names off on her fingers, “and Steve McGarrett.”  
  
“Are you –“ Kidding? Insane? Right? He didn’t know how to finish the question so he said, “Steve is 5,000 miles away. I’m here, with you.” He threw his arms out wide as if to indicate the room, the house, the entire fucking state of New Jersey.  
  
“You talk to him on the phone all the time.” She pointed out.  
  
“About cases, Rachel.” Danny slapped the back of one hand against the other. “Cases, okay? There were cases pending when I left. Things I was working on. Some of the older cases are just now going to court. I know you understand this. Besides, he’s still my friend.”  
  
Even as Danny said those words, he knew they were no longer true. Steve was very courteous when he spoke to Danny, but the very thing that Danny had been so worried about had happened. He’d lost Steve’s friendship, and it was entirely his own fault.  
  
“Really,” she drawled with a knowing smirk. “You were a good deal more than friends, weren’t you? I know you slept with him. It was perfectly obvious from the minute you showed up on my doorstep with him in tow.”  
  
Danny could only stand there, open mouthed, trying to think of something to say.  
  
“You forget how well I know you,” she said and Danny had never seen her look so satisfied. He hadn’t forgotten that, in fact. Rachel knew pretty much everything there was to know about Danny. She knew he was bisexual, for one thing. And she obviously knew about Steve.  
  
“I didn’t sleep with him after we were back together. Not once. Who I slept with prior to that is none of your business. And Steve has nothing to do with this situation.”  
  
“This situation? This ‘situation’ is our future, Danny.”  
  
“Our future? What are you going to do if the kid is Stan’s, huh? What are you going to do, Rachel?”  
  
Rachel got up from the table without saying a word and walked out of the kitchen. “Don’t walk away from me; I’m talking here!” he yelled as he followed her down the hall.  
  
“As if you do anything else,” she threw at him over her shoulder.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“Oh, do be quiet. Grace is coming up the walk.  I don’t want her to know anything until the results are back. Now, do you think you’re capable of controlling yourself until then? Because if not, you can leave now.”  
  
“Yes, I can control myself. What do you think I am?”  
  
Rachel gave him a look like she didn’t think he wanted an answer to that, and he had to concede that she was probably right. He did have a temper. Always had. But he actually did know how to control it around his daughter.  
  
So they put on smiles for Grace and pretended that everything was fine. But Grace was not a stupid child and she could obviously feel the tension that filled the house like a thick fog. She was more clingy than normal, especially with him. It reminded Danny of how she’d been right before he and Rachel had called it quits the first time.  
  
There were no words for how big an asshole he was for doing this to Grace. During it all, he’d never once thought about what was best for her. It had all been about getting Rachel back, getting his family back and he’d never once considered what it would be like for Grace if it didn’t work out. What would it do to his little girl if he and Rachel split up again?

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Two days of waiting for the test results took their toll and by the time Thursday finally rolled around, Danny was tense and snappish. Every time the phone rang, his stomach clenched and rolled. Rachel had wanted to wait until he got home to give him the news, but he’d insisted that she call as soon as she knew. He was starting to think that maybe she’d been right. He was having a hard time concentrating on the paperwork needed to wrap up the burglary ring they’d busted the day before and anyone who got within two feet of him was getting the brunt of his anxiety and anger.  
  
“You want me to take care of the paperwork, Danny?” Jim said. His partner obviously knew something was up, but had only asked once and had taken Danny at his word when he said he didn’t want to talk about it. Steve would have nagged him until he broke and talked, but not Jim. He pushed thoughts of Steve out of his head as quickly as possible. No use thinking about something that was over and done with.  
  
He looked up and saw the concern on Jim’s face. He was a good partner even if he and Danny weren’t particularly close. “No thanks, I got it.”  
  
“I don’t know how much of it you could have got. You’ve been staring at the computer screen for the last 15 minutes. You’ve been acting squirrelly all day. What’s going on with you, man?”  
  
“Squirrelly? What the hell does that even mean?”  
  
“It means you’ve been on the rag for the last two days, Williams,” Tyler piped up from across the room. “You want a Midol? I’ve got some in my purse.”  
  
Danny just glared at her before turning his attention back to his partner. “I’m fine, okay?  Just – “ He was cut off by Paul Anka, and Jesus, he needed to change that ringtone even if the baby was his. “I gotta take this,” he said and left the room in search of someplace private to take the call.  
  
 “What’d he say?” he blurted into the phone as soon as he’d squeezed himself into a small alcove just outside the squad room.  
  
He could hear the tears in her voice when Rachel said quietly, “I’m so sorry, Danny.”  
  
Danny felt like he had after getting a snootful of Sarin, scared and unable to breathe. Only this was worse. No doctor was around to shoot him full of something that would ease his symptoms.  God, but he’d wanted that baby. He would have had a son. A little boy to take to Yankees game, to toss a football around with. Not that he wouldn’t have done those things with Grace if she’d ever shown even a little interest. What would Stan do with a son anyway? Teach him the finer points of the stock market? Show him how to broker a deal? Teach how much was too much when it came to bribing housing officials?  
  
In the middle of his internal rant, he realized that Rachel was calling his name and probably had been for some time. “Yeah, Rach, I’m here.” He leaned his head against the cool concrete wall.  
  
“Are you coming home?”

“You should probably call Stan. Tell him the good news.”

He thought that would make her angry and maybe he wanted it to make her angry, but she spoke to him in the gentlest, most sympathetic tone, “That’s not an answer, Daniel.” For a moment he hated her.  
  
“I don’t know,” he said and hung up. What he really meant was he didn’t know if he could stand seeing her pregnant with the baby he had thought was his right now. He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready for that.  
  
As it turned out, he didn’t go home. What he did was turn off his phone, walk out of the precinct and down the street to the liquor store, buy a fifth of whisky and find a cheap motel to hole up for the night.  Matt wasn’t around this time to act as his guardrail and sounding board. He was on his own.  
  
After a couple of hours of wallowing in his misery and downing about three-quarters of the bottle, Danny was drunk enough to decide that it would be a great idea to turn his phone back on and call Steve. Even if it was just for a second before Steve rightfully hung up on him, he felt a pathetic need to hear his voice. Ignoring several messages from Rachel and various members of his family – great, now they all knew what an idiot he was – he punched the #2 button, which, for reasons he didn’t want to explore, was still the speed dial for Steve.  
  
On the second ring, Steve picked up with a distracted “McGarrett.”  
  
For a long moment, Danny couldn’t think of what to say. First of all, he was really drunk and thinking, much less talking, was hard and second, up to this point, his communication with Steve since he’d left the island had been mostly business – very civil and very professional. This was a mistake; he should hang up.  
  
“Danny?” And Danny pulled the phone away from his ear at the sound of the concern in Steve’s voice. He didn’t deserve it after the way he’d hurt Steve. He really should hang up, but the need to hear that voice overpowered the little common sense he had that wasn’t drowning in cheap whiskey.  
  
“Steve,” he finally croaked. “Hey.”  
  
“Are you okay?” What time is it there? 3 a.m.?”  
  
The numbers on the bedside clock swam in front of eyes. “Bout that, yeah. I guesh.” He fell back onto the bed. “And ‘m fine,” he said, waving a hand around that Steve couldn’t see. “Great. Fantash- fan-tas-tic even.”  
  
“You’re drunk.”  
  
“Blasted, if you wanna know the truth. What gave it away, huh? Or did you use your stellar detective skills to figure it out all on your own?”  
  
The sound of Steve’s irritated sigh blew down the phone line. “Did you call just to be an asshole? Because I was in the middle of something and I can –“  
  
“Don’t hang up, please.” He hated how pathetic he sounded. “You’re a great detective. I told you that, right?”  
  
“No, you never did.” Danny could hear the rustling of paper and knew that Steve was putting away whatever he was working on to give Danny his full attention. “Talk to me,” he said. “Did something happen to Grace or Rachel?”  
  
“No, no, they’re fine.” He reached for the whiskey bottle on the night stand and took a long pull. He needed to be even drunker if he was going to talk to Steve about this. He took a deep breath and started, “I took Rachel to have her first ultrasound and –“  
  
“Is something wrong with the baby?” Steve broke in.  
  
“He’s fine. It’s a boy, by the way.”  
  
“That’s great, Danny.” Steve sounded confused.  
  
“Yeah, a perfect baby boy. All his parts are there and he’s growing normally. The doctor said everything looks great.”  
  
“Then what’s the problem?”  
  
“What’s the problem, you ask?” He paused to take another drink. “The problem . . .  the problem is he’s not mine.”  
  
“Oh, shit, Danny, are you sure?”  
  
“Oh yeah, I’m positive. Had a paternity test done and everything. Doc took some of my hair and did whatever they do with pieces of hair to find out that you’re not the father of your ex-wife’s baby even though she fucking told you you were.”  
  
“It’s Stan’s then?” Danny could barely stand the sympathy in Steve’s voice.  
  
“Yep. Good ole Step-Stan.”  
  
“God, Danny. I’m sorry.”  
  
“Me, too,” Danny said quietly, placing the bottle carefully back onto the nightstand. The room was starting to spin, and he really didn’t feel so good.  
  
“What are you going to do?” Steve was asking and he sounded very far away. Even farther away than the 5,000 miles he actually was.  
  
“I have no idea. Passing out sounds good right about now.”  
  
Steve chuckled low and as drunk as Danny was, it still went straight to his groin.  
  
“You do that,” Steve said. “Get some sleep. Call me when you wake up.”  
  
“It’ll be really late there.”  
  
“I don’t care. I want to know that you’re okay. If I don’t hear from you, I’m hopping on a plane. Don’t make me come to Jersey.” He paused and his voice took on a pleading tone. “Seriously, Danny, do not make me come to Jersey.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.” He was fading fast.  
  
“Good night, Danny,” Steve said, but Danny didn’t hear it.

 

How the hell could one thin beam of sunlight feel like a laser drilling into your eyes, that’s what Danny wanted to know. And if that weren’t enough, his cell phone alarm sounded like a goddamned air raid siren. He had picked that particular ringtone thinking it would make him want to get up, but with the hangover he had it was only succeeding in making him lose the will to live. He rolled over and viciously stabbed at the dismiss button.   
  
“Fuck,” he muttered. He had to get up. It was bad enough that he’d left work in the middle of a shift; showing up late and hung over would just add to his list of sins. He winced at the thought of what the captain would say. He needed to get showered, call Rachel and Grace, and Steve. Couldn’t forget to call Steve. The crazy bastard probably would hop the first flight to Newark if he did.  
  
Feeling more human after his shower and with his headache slightly tamed, Danny called Rachel to let her know he was all right and to find out what she’d told Grace about his absence before spending a few minutes talking to his daughter before she went to school. He continued Rachel’s lie that he’d been on a stake-out, but they would have to have a talk with Grace this evening. He was dreading letting his little girl down yet again.  
  
Danny checked out of the hotel and got his car pointed in the direction of Hoboken before hitting Steve’s speed dial number. He’d been tempted to forego the promised call just to see if he would really make good on his threat because seeing Steve’s face would be really, really good right now.  
  
Steve answered on the first ring and sounded alert even though it was close to 1:30 a.m. in Honolulu.  
  
“Couldn’t wait to hear the sound of my voice, could you?” Danny teased and it felt almost like the days when talking to Steve was the easiest thing in the world.  
  
“I’m surprised that you remembered enough of our conversation last night to call. You were pretty drunk.”  
  
“I was afraid you’d commandeer a jet and parachute into Weehawken if I didn’t.”  
  
Steve laughed. “How’s the hangover?”  
  
Danny snorted, then immediately regretted it because the movement killed his head. “Fucking awful, but I’ve actually had worse.” Danny laid on the horn, wincing at the pain it caused, and shouted at the idiot who’d nearly sideswiped him “Hey, watch it, asshole, this lane is occupied. Stupid son of a bitch.”  
  
“I take it you’re on your way to work?”  
  
“I’m on my way to lose another piece of my soul. Jesus Christ, where’d you get your license, on the back of a cereal box? Goddamn robbery division in goddamn Hoboken, for fuck’s sake. And I was lucky to get that. On the upside, I’ve actually gone four months without getting shot at and my partner’s not a psycho who was voted most likely to die in a fiery explosion.”  
  
“So, it’s boring, in other words.”  
  
Danny sighed. “Oh, babe, you have no idea. Even I don’t have the words to describe how boring it is.”  
  
“So, come home. There’s still a place on the team for you.”   
  
Danny wasn’t sure how he felt about Steve referring to Hawaii as ‘home,’ and he could never go back without Grace and Steve knew that. But god, it was tempting. So tempting that Danny decided to go for flip.  
  
“You really do miss me, don’t you?”  
  
“Yeah, I miss being called an asshole on a regular basis.” Danny could just picture Steve’s rolling his eyes.  
  
“Neanderthal was always my personal favorite.”  
  
“No one calls me that anymore, either.” Steve sounded almost wistful. Jesus. How was he going to deal with this?  
  
“Yeah. Well, look, Steve, I’m pulling up at the station, so I gotta go. And you should go to sleep.”  
  
“Yes, mom.”  
  
“Asshole.”  
  
Steve’s laughter nearly had him turning the car around and heading for the airport. “Okay,” Steve was saying. “Keep in touch, Danny. I mean it.”  
  
And just like that, things were almost right between them again.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Go to bed, McGarrett,” he said before ending the call.  
  
Danny sat in the car gathering himself for a few minutes before he went into the squad room. His head was still killing him, but he had to admit that talking to Steve made him feel a little better. And he didn’t want to think about all the things that might mean.

Work pretty much sucked. Jim kept looking at him as if his countdown was nearing zero until he finally told him what was going on. Then his partner spent the rest of the day treating him exceedingly kindly,  and that got on Danny’s nerves even more.  
  
The day got even worse when he got home and Rachel informed him that Stan was in town and wanted to try again and she’d agreed to it for the baby’s sake. That meant going back to Hawaii, and even though Steve said there was a place for Danny on the team and things seemed to be better between them, it didn’t mean there was a place for Danny in Steve’s life again. Steve had treated him kindly last night and today, but Danny had been drunk and distressed and Steve was, after all, a nice guy. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand it if he went back there and Steve started treating him like a co-worker, or worse, a subordinate. Steve’s friendship had been so important to him that he’d pushed aside his own feelings and kept their sexual relationship casual just so he wouldn’t lose it. He didn’t know if he could stand it if Steve wanted to keep their relationship on a professional level from now on. He should be grateful that Steve was even talking to him.  
  
He’d never forget the hopeful look on Steve’s face when he realized that Danny had stayed behind to help clear his name when he could have left Hawaii with Rachel. That look had turned to devastation when Danny informed Steve that his flight for Newark left in the morning. He’d promised Steve he’d get him out, and he’d done that. Now he was leaving to join his family back east.  
  
Steve had shown up at Danny’s place that morning as Danny was getting ready to leave for the airport. He’d obviously been drinking all night. He started off with begging Danny not to leave, but when his arguments did nothing to sway Danny, he began hurling every curse he’d ever learned in several different languages. The ones in English had been pretty bad; Danny had never had the courage to look up what the others meant. Each one hit and stung because they were all true. Danny was all those things and more, and he didn’t deserve the forgiveness that Steve was apparently offering him now.  
  
But none of that compared to how bad the day got when Grace got home from school. He and Rachel sat her down, told her about the baby and that mommy and daddy were splitting up again. Grace had been inconsolable, and Danny felt like he’d just been crowned Worst Father in the World. Instead of a tiara and a bouquet of roses, he got a dunce cap, a bundle of thorns and the privilege of listening to his daughter sob hysterically until she’d cried herself to sleep.  
  
“My god, Danny,” Rachel said softly as she drew a blanket over Grace’s shoulder and kissed her tear-stained face. “We’ve really made a mess of things again.”

All Danny could do was agree as he watched his daughter sleep.

Later that night, after Danny packed his bags to Rachel’s protest that he didn’t have to leave, he found himself on Meggie’s door step. This time would be different. He wouldn’t hole up in a pay-by-the-hour motel and drink himself into a stupor every night, the night before notwithstanding. A one-night pity party was all he was allowing himself. Instead of Matt holding his hand every night while he got shitfaced and whined about Rachel, he’d stay with his sister and let her fuss over him, and as a bonus, he’d get to spend some time with his nephew.  
  
He needed some time to regroup and decide what he was going to do, although he knew, of course. Whatever Stan and Rachel were going to do was what he was going to do. Stay in Jersey? Okay, he’d stay. Go back to Hawaii? Aloha. As much as he found himself irritated by the notion that his life was at the mercy of Stan Edwards, he also found himself somewhat eager to return to Hawaii, although it wasn’t really the state he was eager to get back to, if he had to admit it. Despite his earlier misgivings, he wanted to see Steve again. Wanted to be part of the team again.  
  
However, a third option that Danny had never counted on was revealed a week later when Rachel called and invited him to dinner with her and Stan to talk to him about something.

“You want me to come to dinner with you and the husband I helped you cheat on?” he asked.  
  
Rachel inhaled sharply, but recovered quickly. “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound rather awkward. But please, Danny, it’s important.”  
  
“Fine,” he said. “Where and when?”  
  
The when was the next evening and the where was not a ridiculously expensive place in Manhattan like he expected, but a small Spanish restaurant in an out-of-the-way neighborhood in Newark that had once been on Danny’s beat and that he and Rachel had frequented when they’d been married.  When Danny arrived, he was greeted by the owner, Gervasi, who asked him why on earth he’d left “beautiful Hawaii” for the cold dreariness of February in Newark.  He found himself wondering the same damned thing as he brushed the snow off of his coat.  
  
He found Stan alone at a table in a secluded corner. “Where’s Rachel?” he asked, glancing around.  
  
“She’ll be along; the babysitter was late so she sent me on ahead. I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you alone anyway.”  
  
Danny braced himself for the tirade that he was sure was coming and that he deserved. “I think I’ll need a drink for this,” he said and signaled the waiter.  
  
Stan actually laughed and said, “Relax, Danny.” The waiter came over and Stan ordered two glasses of very expensive Scotch. “Look, I don’t bear you any animosity. Well, not much anyway. The fact is, if I hadn’t been neglecting Rachel in favor of business, it wouldn’t have been so easy for you to take her from me.”  
  
Danny winced. Stan was going easy on him, but still, the man was right. The waiter sat the scotches down in front of them and Danny immediately took a huge swallow. Stan chuckled a little and sipped his slowly before he continued.  
  
“This is the second time you’ve helped me, Danny, even though both times were for purely selfish reasons. We all made mistakes here and mine was putting my business before my marriage. I neglected Rachel, and I nearly lost her because of it. I’m going to try to fix it, but I’ll need your help again.”  
  
Danny nearly choked on his drink. “My help? You need my help to patch up your relationship with Rachel?”  
  
“In a manner of speaking, yes. I have an opportunity to move my business to San Diego. It’ll mean less travel; more time with Rachel, Grace and the baby.”  
  
Shit. Danny rubbed his head. “So you’ll be moving to San Diego, then.” And there it was. Time to dance to Stan’s tune once again. “And that has what to do with me? Other than having to move across the country again.” He didn’t want to dwell on the jolt of sadness he felt at the thought of not going back to Hawaii.  
  
“That’s just it, Danny. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t follow this time.”  
  
Danny found himself staring at Stan. The man had to be –. “You’re kidding, right? I go where Grace goes. Why the hell do you think I quit my job and moved 5,000 miles to a tropical island when I hate the beach?”  
  
Stan held up a hand. “I understand that, Danny. I do. Now more than ever. You’re a great father. I hope I’m half as good with my child.”  
  
Danny couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I’m not buttering you up,” Stan said so earnestly that Danny believed him. “And I do know what I’m asking of you. But, look, Rachel and I deserve the chance to work out our marriage without you always being around. Surely you can understand that.”  
  
The problem was, he did understand it, but he didn’t like it. Not one damned bit. How could Stan even think about asking him to give up access to Grace?  
  
Gervasi’s loud exclamations about how long it had been and wasn’t Rachel positively glowing signaled her arrival. Making her way toward the table, she took one look at Danny and said, “I suppose Stan has told you about the move?”  
  
“Yes, and if you think for one second that I’m going to give up my parental rights so Gordon Gecko here can adopt Grace, you’re –“  
  
They both began protesting immediately. “Danny,” Rachel said, sitting down at the table and eyeing the scotch glasses like she dearly wished she could have one. “I would never suggest such a thing. Grace needs her Danno, and you need her. I’ve come up with a  plan that I think could work.”

 

After dinner, Danny made his way back to Meggie’s house thinking about the deal that Rachel and Stan had offered him. In return for his not moving to San Diego, he would get Grace each year for alternating Thanksgiving or Christmas breaks and for the entire summer. Adding it up, it amounted to almost the same amount of time he had with her when he was getting her two days a week. It was tempting, having his baby with him for three months every summer. The years he got her for the short Thanksgiving break would suck, but Christmas break was two weeks. But he’d also get to see her whenever Stan and Rachel were on the island visiting Stan’s family. He had left Stan and Rachel without making a commitment, but promising to think about it.  
  
Meggie greeted him by putting a beer in his hand. “I thought you’d probably need this.”  
  
“You ain’t kidding.” Danny accepted it gratefully and followed his sister into the living room, which was doubling as his bedroom. He removed his coat and toed off his shoes before flopping down on the couch.  
  
“How did it go?”  
  
“It was quite possibly the most awkward and painful dinner of my life, but hey, Stan didn’t punch me in the mouth, which even I can admit that I probably deserve.”  
  
“What about Rachel?”  
  
“She didn’t punch me in the mouth either.”  
  
Meggie laughed and threw a pillow at him. “You dork. I mean, how is she?”  
  
“She’s great. Being back with Stan suits her. She looks radiant, according to Gervasi.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Danny.”  
  
Danny dropped his head back on the couch. “I really wish everyone would stop saying that.”  
  
She gave him a sympathetic look, reached out and patted his knee. “So I guess you’re all moving back to Hawaii?”  
  
“No, actually, we’re not. Stan and Rachel and, most importantly, Grace are moving to San Diego.”  
  
Meggie grimaced in sympathy. “Oh, no, Danny. You hate California.”  
  
Danny acknowledged that fact with a tilt of his head. He stared forlornly at his empty beer bottle – he didn’t even remember finishing it, which was surely a bad sign - and then looked expectantly at his sister.

“You want another beer, get off your ass and get it yourself.” Danny huffed and headed for the kitchen. “Bring me one while you’re at it,” she called to him.  
  
“You want another beer, get off your ass and get it yourself,” he threw back at her, but he brought her one anyway.  
  
“You’re such a good little brother,” she crooned at him. “So, what are you going to do?”  
  
Danny settled back onto the couch and silently vowed to make this beer last a little longer. “Rachel and Stan made me an offer. I don’t follow them to San Diego and I get Grace every summer and either Thanksgiving or Christmas every year.” He looked over at her, his expression inviting her to offer her opinion, not that she needed an invitation.  
  
“It sounds fair,” she said carefully. She had never approved of him and Rachel getting back together. A fact that she had repeated to Danny many times since he’d come back to New Jersey.  
  
“Yeah, I suppose. They want a chance to fix their marriage and think it’ll be easier if I’m not around. Which, okay, is fair, but – “ He shook his head. He didn’t need to tell Meggie how hard it was not being able to see Grace whenever he wanted.  
  
He could tell that Meggie was holding back on an I-told-you-so. They’d had a huge fight about Rachel and how unbelievably stupid Danny was the night that Danny had turned up at her door, bags in hand. He could tell she was itching to let loose again, but instead she just sighed and said, “I don’t know how you do it, Danny. If I couldn’t have Jackson with me, I don’t think I could stand it.”  
  
Oh good, they were changing the subject from Danny’s huge mistake to Meggie’s huge mistake. “Has that no good ex of yours been around to see him lately?”  
  
“No. He’s always got some excuse. He’s not half the father you are.”  
  
That was true. “I always hated that asshole.”  
  
“Which you never bothered to even attempt to hide.”  
  
That was also true. “You never liked Rachel,” he countered.  
  
“I’ve got nothing against Rachel, but she hated you being a cop, Danny. That’s like hating you. And look how she’s jerking you around even now.”  
  
There wasn’t much Danny could say to that. Rachel had hated being a cop’s wife. He really didn’t know why he thought that would change. Two months back in Jersey and she’d already been hinting around that he should change jobs. Why she thought he would when he hadn’t been willing to do it to save their marriage the first time was beyond him. Maybe they were both delusional. Or maybe they’d wanted another chance so badly that they’d willed themselves to believe it would be different this time.  
  
They sat quietly, sipping their beers and watching the flames dying in the fireplace. Meggie put down her empty bottle and said seriously,  “You should go back to Hawaii.”  
  
Danny nearly choked on the last of his beer. “How many of those have you had?”  
  
She frowned at him. “Just the two, and you know I’m right.”  
  
“Trying to get rid of me already?”  
  
“You can stay as long as you want. You know that. I love having you here, and Jackson is so excited about going to the hockey game with his Uncle Danny on Saturday. But be that as it may, you should go back because you were happy there.”  
  
“You are oh so wrong. I hated it there,” Danny protested, mostly for show because Meggie had his number. She always did. “Sand everywhere, one minute the sun’s out, the next minute it’s pouring down rain, annoying tourists, terrible pizza. They put pineapple on everything! And I do mean everything. Spam is a delicacy there, okay? They eat things you can’t even imagine. You should google ‘loco moco’ sometime. And you can search high and low, but you will never find a decent bagel in Honolulu. What on earth would make you think I was happy there?”  
  
“Steve.”  
  
“Steve? McGarrett? You’re talking about Steve McGarrett? The bane of my existence? The maniac who stashes grenades in my car? And uses them.” Danny mimes pulling the pin, throwing the grenade, and the subsequent explosion. “That Steve?”  
  
A huge grin lit up Meggie’s face. “That’s the one. You know, the one you talk to on the phone to every day like a teenage girl.”  
  
“He calls to check on me. He’s concerned. It’s what friends do.” Somewhat to Danny’s surprise, Steve’s frequent business calls had turned more friendly as they spent a significant amount of time just talking once business was dispensed with.  And every call ended with a reminder that he was still welcome at 5-0.  
  
“You can lie to yourself, Dannyboy, but you can’t lie to me. You were happy there and you know it.”  
  
“I was happy because I was with Grace.”  
  
“Uh huh, are you sure that’s the only reason?”  
  
“I have no idea what you mean.” Meggie raised an eyebrow and said nothing.  
  
“And because of Steve,” he finally admitted. “We sort of had a thing.”

“A thing, huh? Matty called me right after you all had dinner together. He said you two were crazy about each other but you were both too stupid to know it.”  
  
“Sounds about right. Even if I go back, there’s no guarantee I’ll get him back. He asked me to come back to the team, not to him.” He dropped his head into his hands. “God, I really fucked things up.”  
  
“So, go back to the team and the rest will sort itself out. He obviously loves you or he wouldn’t keep calling you and asking you to come back.”  
  
Danny had to concede that she might have a point.  
  
“And you love him, so stop being such a dumbass.”  
  
That startled a laugh out of Danny, but he was ready with his standard comeback, “Fuck you.”  
  
“No, fuck you,” Meggie said through her laughter.  
  
“No –“ Danny planned to continue their routine for as long as possible, but he was interrupted by his phone ringing.  
  
“Right on schedule,” Meggie said smugly. “This time, when he asks you to come back? Say yes, dumbass.”  
  
Danny flipped her off as he headed out into the backyard – the only place in Meggie’s tiny house where he could talk to Steve without his nosy big sister listening in. He shut the door on her laughter, but could still hear it although it was slightly muffled. His heart ached with how he had missed her when he’d been in Hawaii. He had always counted on her for good advice even if she laughed at him and called him ‘dumbass’ while doling it out.  
  
 “Hey,” he said into phone, watching as his breath formed a thin, white cloud in the cold night air.  It had finally stopped snowing and the moon reflecting off the snow covered ground made it nearly as bright as day.  
  
“Hey,” Steve answered back. “How’d it go?”  
  
Of course Danny had told Steve about the dinner when they’d talked the other night. Now he paced the yard aimlessly while he recounted the evening.

“Rachel and Stan are moving to San Diego, which means, of course, Grace is going with them.”  
  
There was silence on the other end and then a disappointed sounding, “Oh.” And then more silence.  
  
“Oh? That all you have to say?”  
  
“Oh, I guess you’ll be moving to San Diego, then?”  
  
“No, I won’t. See, Stan and Rachel have requested my presence at a location that is not San Diego or anywhere near it. Something about wanting to work on their marriage without the distraction of me hanging around and doing things like seeing my daughter!” His voice rose with his anger and he found himself slumped against a tree, suddenly very tired of talking about it.  
  
“What are you going to do?” Danny thought he detected a little bit of hope in Steve’s voice.  
  
“I don’t know.” In the silence, Danny heard a muffled roar in the background. “You on the beach?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.  
  
“Yep.”  
  
He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the time. Almost 10 p.m., which would make it nearly 4 p.m. in Honolulu. “Shouldn’t you be out violating someone’s civil rights?”  
  
Steve’s chuckle was warm and relaxed like it was when they sat together on that beach, drinking beers and talking, and it went straight to his groin like it had then. He breathed deeply and willed his body not to react.  
  
“Slow day,” Steve was saying, “We knocked off early.”  
  
“What’s the weather like?”  
  
“Sunny and warm,” Steve answered, the ‘duh’ unspoken. And really what was he thinking? It was always sunny and warm there. Except at night when it was dark and warm. He wrapped his free arm around himself and shivered a little. Why the hell hadn’t he stopped to get his coat? Also, the wet snow was starting to soak his shoes.  
  
“What’s it’s like there?”  
  
“Fucking freezing, what do you think? It’s February. It’s been snowing all day.”  
  
There was that damn chuckle again. “Come home, Danny. I’ve got a Longboard and a deck chair here with your name on them.”  
  
Danny pictured him, beer in hand, probably with his goddamned shirt off, wearing board shorts hanging low on his waist, slouched in one of those rickety old chairs, toes digging in the sand. God, he missed him.  
  
“I’m going to keep asking until you say yes, so you might as well give in. You know how stubborn I can be. Besides Honolulu is a lot closer to San Diego than Jersey.”  
  
The man had a point, but Danny changed the subject again and for the next several minutes they talked about Chin’s wedding to Malia, which was catered by Kamekona who had strict instructions not to put Spam in anything. Steve regaled him with stories about the reception starring the antics of the extended Kelly-Kalakaua family, laughing so hard he could barely get though a sentence.  
  
And Danny could imagine how he looked with his head thrown back, long neck exposed, and eyes squeezed shut. For a guy who was so damn stoic most of the time, Steve really let himself out when he laughed. Danny suddenly ached with longing to see him again. To sit on that beach and swap bullshit stories – Steve’s about the Navy and Danny’s about his days in Newark PD. Even if they could only be friends – he wanted that back.  
  
“Ask me again,” he said abruptly.  
  
“What?” Steve was still chuckling over his last story.  
  
“Ask me again to come home.” Danny held his breath and squeezed the phone so tight he thought it might break apart in his hands. “Ask me again,” he repeated, more urgently.  
  
A sharp intake of breath sounded down 5,000 miles of towers and relays. And then, “Danny. Come home.”  
  
Danny let out his breath, nodding his head even though Steve couldn’t see him. “Yes. Okay. Yes.”  
  
And Steve was off.  “How soon? I’ll get Kamekona’s cousin to start looking for a decent apartment for you. Or maybe a small house.”  
  
He let Steve’s voice wash over him as he nattered on about various neighborhoods that were a lot nicer than where he used to live and how Kamekona’s cousin, who was apparently a real estate agent could find probably find him a nice place for a reasonable rent. Until finally, Danny told him to slow down because there were things he needed to take care of in Jersey before he could leave. He also wanted to spend a little time with Grace in San Diego before he was banned from the city.  
  
“Yeah, okay. Hey, I should let you go because you’re fucking freezing and all. And it’s getting late there.”  
  
“Enjoy the beach and the warmth.”  
  
“I’ll enjoy it a lot more when you’re here with me. Bye, Danny.”  
  
The promise Steve’s voice held made it difficult to speak for a few seconds. Then he managed, “Bye. Oh, hey, thanks, man.”  
  
“You got it.” Steve said and hung up. Danny stood in the yard looking up at the stars, thinking about how much clearer they looked on the beach behind Steve’s house.  
  
End


End file.
